It's probably a great idea NOT to switch channels during these commercials...

We've seen it popping up occasionally in mainstream news, but even the 16 months' forewarning remaining doesn't soften the blow for analog television watchers. But that won't stop Congress from pounding boob tube watchers with a huge televised advertisement blitz next year.

The National Association of Broadcasters announced plans Monday to launch a $697 million public awareness ad campaign alerting current "analogers" that the Federal Communications Commission is upconverting all broadcast signals to digital come February 17, 2009, according to Associated Press.

Congress is meanwhile pitching in $5 million toward publicizing the soon-to-be ubiquitous ad campaigns, yet although this number isn't exactly a groundbreaking collaborative effort, their real generosity is $1.5 billion in consumer coupons so homeowners won't be left, well, signalless when broadcasters convert. $40 in discount coupons will be given to every individual still watching analog TV (i.e. over antenna and not with a cable or satellite company) so they can buy digital-analog converter boxes. According to the Heartland Institute, a nonprofit promoting technological research awareness, each DTV converter runs $80 to $100; thankfully, consumers can apply for up to two $40 vouchers.

In addition to on-air public announcements, NAB will devote over $327 million to news coverage; a "DTV Road Show featuring TV-shaped trucks touting the transition; banner ads on Web sites; and 30-minute shows about the transition," according to a Broadcasting & Cable magazine article. (As an aside, this is shaping up to be the most intensely coordinated ad campaign ever conceived for television - and it's necessary, too.)

A 2005 Government Accountabiliy Office study concluded that roughly 19 percent out of 108.5 million U.S. households (about 21 million folks with 70 million sets) watch TV via airwaves, pointing out that the elderly trend toward this method. Wow, not surprising.

Also not surprising: The switch-over most strongly affects the poor and minorities, which represent a great majority of the 21 million "analogers," according to Scientific American magazine.

The NAB also added that 95 broadcasting companies pledged to run the digital TV ad spots during prime time, a bread-and-butter nightly block where millions of ad revenue per commerical are gained. Of course, sacrificing every broadcaster's cash cow may seem an unhealthy agreement now, but chew on this: no public awareness at all is just plain foolhardy - should a multi-billion dollar conglomerate broadcasters have a vested interest in forfeiting ad revenue now, or should they stand to lose 21 million ignorant analog viewers instead? Gee, it boggles the noggin...

Here's one video advertisement slated to run as part of NAB's ad campaign blitz.

Images Courtesy DTV Answers, www.textually.org

I've got a (cheap) ticket to ride...

Any vehement quibbling about America's swelling traffic problem invariably segues into some argument against overpopulation and, to greater extent, how one bypasses all that nasty congestion. If you're thinking certain city engineers should take a defibrillator or three to our woeful nationwide public transportation problem, you're right. Thankfully, Beijing, China, just cranked out a prototype not only worthy of worldwide acclaim, but of being called an antidote to a planet that refuses to slow down.

The October 7 grand opening of Beijing's $1.45 billion Line 5 underground subway network falls just ten months before the capital hosts the 2008 Olympics, and serves to streamline travel during the highly anticipated summer games. But the railway line alleviates a much more pressing burden - a city so thronged to the gills it had to designate a "No Car Day" two months ago to combat rising air pollution, according to a Washington Post article. The metropolis itself is beleaguered with a population that rivals the entire state of Florida (approximately 17 million), so a cost-efficient subway promises a smoother transition come the flood rush of tourists next summer.

Yes, I said cost-efficient. Beijing slashed fares to roughly 27 cents per-commuter per-ride, so the whole shebang costs around the price of a pack of bubble gum. The powerful 27.3 km rail line not only outclasses any form of Western transportation, but packs an impressive medley of LCD-panel ticket centers, information terminals, air conditioning, handicapped accessibility, onboard flatscreen televisions and a ubiquitous wireless surveillance system monitoring platform and subway car traffic.

Here's a brief 360-degree panorama around the interior of one passenger car:



That's not all, fellow flummoxed college commuters. The Beijing Subway line plans to overhaul its entire public transportation system by 2020 - which includes jacking up the number of public transportation users from 30 to 40 percent by 2010. City officials are shooting for the largest subway network in the world at a projected 561 km - larger than the London Underground - to justify thrusting railway lines into every conceivable part of the clogged and overwhelmed city. And that's including the newly-constructed Olympic Park - the bustling centerpiece for all Olympic-related activities.

Since Beijing's facelift coincides with Olympic preparations, arguably equally congested cities might use that kind of an incentive to revamp their own ailing public transportation infrastructure. Heck, the Second Avenue subway line in New York City has been a project bubbling since the Roaring Twenties, but constantly derailed ever since, according to a New York Magazine article.

Does it really take a bid to host the Olympics to spur traffic reform in America's most gridlocked cities? Paging the 2020 Olympics...

Images courtesy www.Treehugger.com

Livin' it up in the United Arab Emirates (such a lovely place)

Move over, Disney World. And, for that matter, the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, Taipei 101, sports stadiums, existing garish hotels, or any other man-made artifice that at one point made humanity marvel at its sheer ingenuity.

Within the next half-decade, a single city stands poised to conquer and dwarf every identifiable landmark on Earth - and in record time. Dubai, a city located in the heart of the United Arab Emirates, is quickly transforming into a boomtown for tourist attractions and breakneck development. Development which, according to a U.K. Sunday herald article, wouldn't happen without the thousands of foreign laborers toiling under massive skyscrapers in the blazing Persian Gulf sun.

Yes, amid all the construction cranes, a half-built theme park dubbed Dubailand, and a chain of unfinished luxury islands modeled after the entire world are South Asian, Pakistani and other migrant workers sweating in sweltering desert heat and earning little dinero in return. That's right: the average foreign construction worker earns about $1 an hour, according to an August New York Times article.

Of course, that's only counting the workers who actually get paid.

The Sunday Herald's description is bleak:

"The sprawling, heat-blistered labour camp of Sonapur is a squalid home very different to the air-conditioned luxury enjoyed by the British expatriates. Workers sleep eight to a room in ugly dormitory blocks festooned with washing hung out to dry, shuttled by fleets of battered buses past the Starbucks and bars to building sites ringed with barbed wire where they toil for 12 hours or more, six days a week."

Thankfully, the laborers slogging through some of the worst working conditions in the entire world comprise roughly 99 percent of the workforce, or 4. 5 million foreigners. The cost of catering to upper-crust Shiekhs, Americans and other far-flung businessmen pouring petroleum money into Dubai just became a little easier. That's because a couple-thousand workers walked off a few-dozen construction sites last year, leading the UAE Labor Ministry to fork over back wages and improve worker's camp conditions. But unfortunately, the NYT story claims that laborers have "no right to unionize and no chance at citizenship."

Should globalization really come at such a terrible price? There's nothing more disheartening (or ironic) than to see blatant exploitation of labor used to build vacation resorts and travel hotspots sure to attract the wealthiest families on the planet. If so, bigwig executives can surely expect such a furious bottom-rung militancy to continue.

In about ten years, when most FAU graduates have advanced to suburbs and median-income jobs, and the hot topic 'round the household is a debate between shuffling the kids off to the newly-opened Dubailand or boring ol' Disney World, would the parents remember the cheap foreign labor that took to create it? Would they remember all the blistered hands that fashioned a desert paradise?

Images Courtesy BusinessWeek, NY Times, Burj-Dubai

Computer mouse beats remote control — this week only, that is

The combined onslaught of the Fall Television season and college midterms has forced America's most coveted viewer demographic to strike a compromise.

It's not easy to reconcile TV watching - a passive viewer/medium relationship - with the more active pursuit of postsecondary education. But dad gum it, broadcasters are sure gonna try.

After announcing plans to sever ties with iTunes earlier this month, NBC opted to launch a competitor called NBC Direct this October, a service providing free but ad-supported full downloads of its present shows. There are several catches: a. downloads are available only through Amazon's Unbox service; b. commericals embedded within the downloads are unskippable; c. they're only available up to a week after they premiere; and d. the download "degrades" (or blocks playability) after seven days.

Sounds unreasonably complicated. So why did NBC split with iTunes anyway? Although NBC wouldn't name specifics, Apple cited pricing differences; to wit, the broadcaster wanted to charge more for certain shows, and wholesale for its popular programming — a reversal over iTunes' usual $1.99 per episode flat rate.

That's not all. Every broadcaster (including ABC, FOX and CBS) is rolling out free downloads for most season premieres this week; however iTunes and Amazon Unbox are favoring new series such as Journeyman, Chuck, Cane, Pushing Daisies and K-Ville yet charges for returning hit staples Family Guy, CSI, The Office and Heroes. The reason? According to a New York Times article, consumers can download the program before its televised premiere, then spread to friends à la word-of-mouth, so hype is generated virally - by the individual - and not the corporation.

Of course, that assumes the aforementioned college-age demographic (18-25 year-olds) is even willing to participate in viral marketing, considering the windfall of homework and test prep pelting students starting early October.

Yet preliminary signs indicate yes, after a successful viral campaign launched late-July targeted the online file-sharing subculture. While piraters illegally downloaded video camera-quality copies of Transformers, search results were also peppered with allegedly "leaked" series premieres including Pushing Daisings, Cavemen, Bionic Woman and Reaper. Network execs "expressed surprise" over the leak, but we all know better.

I personally DVR the programs, but those not blessed with the same technology may find solace in Unbox and iTunes' free downloads this week.

Of course, you should probably remember to avert your eyes from the cheerleader once in awhile and concentrate on that Chemistry exam, eh?

Images courtesy www.apple.com, www.amazon.com and www.nbc.com.

Pork your pork and eat it, too

Remember the saying, "some foods are aphrodisiacs"? If so, you might agree with linguist/scholar Harry E. Wedeck's clever truism:

"Many so-called aphrodisiac recipes are basically wholesome ingredients prepared in a tasty way. The receptivity to romance probably comes from the general sense of relaxation and well-being good food induces."

Of course, he probably wasn't talking about swine. Or bestiality.

That's because the swanky downtown district of Ropponga, Tokyo, Japan has bequeathed new
meaning to the phrase, "erotic food": an underground restaurant lets patrons, ahem, sexually violate the livestock of their choice, then have it slaughtered, roasted, sautéd and served to them as an entrée.

The members-only bestiality restaurant, according to InventorSpot, caters almost exclusively to nouveau riche clients seeking decadent lairs to satisfy primal urges teetering on taboo. An S&M club worker identified merely as "M" in a Mainichi Daily News column supplies a blow-by-blow of his experience in the restaurant:

"When a customer goes in, they give their name to a receptionist. When they are approved, they pass through a wooden door to be greeted by another door, this one made of metal. Passing a membership card over a scanner outside the door will automatically open it. Inside is an eatery that resembles just about any other Italian restaurant."

Talk about bestial decadence. Anyway, "M" was steered downstairs to an isolated basement, asked to select an animal, and given carte blanche to "do" whatever he wanted. Once comfortable, he was led upstairs to a plush dining room and, lo and behold, fed the very same beast he violated earlier. The price tag for such an act of debauchery? Try 800,000 yen, or roughly $7,000.

Just disgusting. Thankfully, that hideaway's sitting smack on the other side of the globe — right where it should be. I know dogs and cats are considered delicacies in certain South Asian locales, but honestly: What's the explanation for something like this?

Images courtesy InventorSpot, Japaneselifestyle.com.au

To boldly go where no conglomerate has gone before

Search engine? Check. E-mail carrier? Check. Investor in multi-million dollar moon missions?

Surprisingly, check.

Los Angeles Times reported on Sept. 14 that Google Inc. is backing a $30 million planned lunar space race called "Google Lunar X PRIZE," a competition geared toward enterprising robot-philes itching to launch rockets into the vast blackness of space.

An excerpt from the article:
"The international competition challenges entrants to land a robotic vehicle on the moon, have it travel at least 500 meters and beam video images and other data back to Earth. The first company to win the private-sector space race by 2012 would take home $20 million."

Here's a press conference introducing the Google-sponsored competition:



Of course, this is the first non-government-subsidized space exploration project since SpaceShipOne captured the $10-million Ansari X Prize after climbing 377,591 feet (or about 17.5 miles) in 2004.

The reason? Google hopes to spark a "commercial revolution," wherein other corporations would take the proverbial cosmic plunge and sponsor more robotic space expeditions.

It's actually a fantastic idea: Why should the increasingly impatient private-sector idle away while NASA plods along launching hit-or-miss missions? Instead, why not quadruple the manpower, trigger a global revolution and get humanity spacebound faster than before? Can you just imagine the conversations in 100 years once manned missions become as commonplace as bike-riding?

Son: Hey, Ma! I'm goin' to Pluto. See ya at 5:00.
Mother: Wear a sweater, honey. It's chilly.

Now, Google staking millions toward a robot-versus-robot contest is peculiar considering the funding comes from an unconventional source, but we should first remember how the billion-dollar corporation is paving inroads for the Web 2.0 movement. They've progressed from mediocre search engine to e-mail client to Froogle to Google Earth, a software granting users free-license to trek through dazzling 3D renderings of our globe's most far-flung regions.

Doesn't it seem that bankrolling space competitions is the next evolutionary step?

Image courtesy www.xprize.org

From the No-Surprise Department: Viewers declare Sunday's fiasco more interesting than overseas war

Although Britney's disastrous performance last Sunday at the Video Music Awards emerged as an unavoidable news headline, the lumbering lip-syncher's gag-inducing antics managed to cull a huge uptick in ratings - 6.40, or nearly 7.1 million viewers, according to a CNN.com report. The 23% increase over last year all but gave MTV a viewership choke hold over other Sunday Night primetime TV contenders, owing to MTV's announced promise not to reair the 2007 VMAs after the initial broadcast. (By the by, this might not be entirely true — my Comcast onscreen guide shows a reairing on September 17; by then, perhaps MTV is praying viewers won't remember that pledge.)

But you can't deny the majority of those 23% were the same sort of Nosy Nelsons who would deliberately swerve their cars to the lane closest to a highway car crash just a catch a glimpse of any corpses being untangled from the wreckage. And yes, Britney's cringe-worthy, sucktastic waddling does serve as a valid comparison, especially during live TV.

It's no surprise far more relevant telecasts deserved recognition over the VMA's, but the program I have in mind boasts a more recurring downswing in ratings. I'm talking, of course, about the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, whose ailing viewership didn't prevent CBS from shipping the intrepid former Today Show anchor off to Iraq and Syria to earmark the one-year anniversary of Katie joining the nightly news war. It's also a move no other broadcasters parroted, in part to supply viewers firsthand accounts of the battlefield days before U.S. Army General David Petraeus issued his Congressional report on the current military surge.

Anyway, ratings dragged for CBS Evening News despite Katie Couric's insightful overseas field reporting. The telecast scored just 5.5. million viewers on average last week, according to a Neilson Media Research report.

Now, I watched most of those broadcasts, and happen to remember Katie interviewing a few Iraqi families about how secure they felt under U.S. insurgency, not to mention all those breathtaking shots of a Baghdad marketplace before and after it was bombed. There were many spine-tingling reports, yet apparently it wasn't enough appeal to reign in CBS' seemingly lost demographics.

And why not? Well, evidently the horrendous catastrophe in Iraq bears no match to the homespun disastrous meltdown that plagued our televisions on Sunday night. What's more awe-inspiring: fistfuls of grenades wreaking havoc 4,000 miles away or the explosive equivalent of a tragedy in Las Vegas?

According to America, it was the latter.